More than 1 million consumers selected Affordable Care Act plans on the federal health insurance exchange during the fourth week of open enrollment, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Dec. 16. Total signups reached nearly 2.5 million since the enrollment period began, HHS said.
The most recent report covers the period of Dec. 6 to Dec. 12. It does not include the final three days before the first open enrollment deadline, on Dec. 15.
“I am pleased with the response to date on Open Enrollment, but we know we still have a lot of work to do between now and February 15,” said HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell. “The vast majority are having a good consumer experience,” she added.
During open enrollment, HHS is releasing weekly snapshots of preliminary data drawn only from the federal exchange, HealthCare.gov or CuidadodeSalud.gov, and callers to the federal call center at 800-318-2596.
HHS will produce a more detailed monthly report that includes data from the federal exchange as well as state-run health insurance exchanges.
The most recent snapshot report showed that 48% of those signing up were new insureds, while 52% were renewing their coverage.
A total of 4.1 million applications were submitted online, and 2.47 million consumers selected plans.
The HealthCare.gov site was visited by more than 10.8 million users, compared to almost 349,000 for the Spanish-language CuidadodeSalude.gov site.
About 4.1 million consumers contacted the call center. They waited an average of 6 minutes on hold. Callers seeking a Spanish-speaking representative waited about 12 seconds.
More than 4 million visitors used the HealthCare.gov “window shopping” tool to explore coverage options available to them. About 84,000 window shopped on CuidadodeSalud.gov.
Open enrollment ends Feb. 15, 2015. However, for coverage to begin on Jan. 1, 2015, consumers had to have enrolled by Dec. 15, 2014.